Dogs learn a new trick — finding cell phones in prison

Dogs learn a new trick — finding cell phones in prisonForget smokes or liquor. What inmates really want on the inside is a connection to the outside

DAN MORSE, Washington Post

Published
5:30 am CDT, Sunday, July 20, 2008

Sgt. David Brosky, a Maryland corrections officer, demonstrates how his dog Alba, a Belgian malinois, finds cell phones smuggled in to inmates. How a dog is trained to find the contraband is a top secret.

Sgt. David Brosky, a Maryland corrections officer, demonstrates how his dog Alba, a Belgian malinois, finds cell phones smuggled in to inmates. How a dog is trained to find the contraband is a top secret.

Photo: MARVIN JOSEPH, WASHINGTON POST

Photo: MARVIN JOSEPH, WASHINGTON POST

Image
1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Sgt. David Brosky, a Maryland corrections officer, demonstrates how his dog Alba, a Belgian malinois, finds cell phones smuggled in to inmates. How a dog is trained to find the contraband is a top secret.

Sgt. David Brosky, a Maryland corrections officer, demonstrates how his dog Alba, a Belgian malinois, finds cell phones smuggled in to inmates. How a dog is trained to find the contraband is a top secret.

Photo: MARVIN JOSEPH, WASHINGTON POST

Dogs learn a new trick — finding cell phones in prison

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

We could all use one from time to time: a dog that can find the darn cell phone.

Maryland has three. Their job is to sniff out phones smuggled into prisons.

"Cell phones are perhaps the worst type of contraband," said Gary D. Maynard, Maryland's secretary of public safety and correctional services.

"In most cases," he said, "they provide an easy, continuing connection back to the inmate's life on the street."

As cell phones have become smaller, they have become easier to hide.

They are smuggled into prisons by inmates on work-release programs, visiting family members, contractors working in the facilities and corrections officers, state officials said.

In some cases, phones have been tossed over fences to prisoners, officials said.

Inmates don't just use the phones; they trade and sell them, sometimes for as much as $350.

The three Maryland dogs have been trained to smell cell phones using techniques employed to teach dogs to smell drugs.

It isn't clear which parts of phones the dogs detect, but the animals probably take in a combination of odors from various sections, said Maj. Peter Anderson, who heads up the state's K-9 operations for prisons.